GLOW by abductedPlatypus
Instead of rating this one, go rescue some entries instead, and get them ranked! (Click me)
Collect the three icons hidden at the end of each cave an return home to restore power. However you can only progress through the dark with limited freedom, charge before you lose all power.
While you swim you convert your GLOW into magical bubbles. Hints below.
WebGL build is Post-Compo. This is emphasised on the menu, so it should be clear.
https://twitter.com/abductypus
https://youtube.com/watch?v=lCwNCkhoV4c
Made using: - Unity 5.6 - Visual Studio Code (very lightweight with great Unity support) - Illustrator - Photoshop - GarageBand (iOS and Mac) (I wrote a "short" blog post about it!) - Reaper - Pizza (Home made; Cooking is a great break!) While I did add some humor, it's very subtile so I opted out for it.

Hints:
- WASD, thats it.
- There are three icons (Bluetooth, Wifi and Volume, you know, basic needs) each as reward of its own area. Collect them and return home to restore your private light.
- Make sure you have enough light when travelling long distances and dangerous areas.
- Magic bubbles affect green stuff.
- Jellyfish shoot up when overloaded with bubbles.
- Evil Fish shrink when eating bubbles.
Windows Port
Sorted out issues with the Windows build (Took very long but physics interpolation in Unity windows builds seems broken.) I also renewed the macOS build because I optimized a lot (thinking that was the cause of the lag), supporting lower end macOS systems hopefully.
Timelapse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EdILENQbA8
Post-Mortem - with some tips and tricks
Part 1: Music From/For an Audio Noob
Part 2: Quick Polished Design
Part 3: Backlog, Feedback and Observations to Post-Compo
Ratings
| Overall | 34th | 4.014⭐ | 76🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 229th | 3.365⭐ | 76🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 111th | 3.635⭐ | 76🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 147th | 3.838⭐ | 76🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 15th | 4.413⭐ | 77🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 8th | 4.28⭐ | 77🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 9th | 4.347⭐ | 77🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 117🗳️ | 60🗨️ |
And the placement of rechargers is absolutely fantastic - they are spread wide where there is low chance to get hit by accident. But when there is a thin spot that is hard to get through without being hit - the reharger would be just in range.
And the savepoint system... It is nont-intrusive and helpful restoring you not far from where you were and not forcing you to replay the entire game. This do encourage to keep trying and as a result - I spen way more time in the game than I usually spend in jam-game... and I played it to completion!
The only two things are:
- it is not intuitively obvious to return to starting point after you collected all 3 goals. I did this during scouting the area "in case I missed something"
- "light seds" (that exelletly serve purpose of breadcrumbs during exploration phase) to not reset upon load. And this makes retrying a bit harder that the initial atempt. Not too much - the rechargers are really well placed, but if you have the seeds around it gives you a tad biger margin of error. And that makes initial and subsequant attempts slightly inconsistent.
Anyway - this is a perfect scone for me!
The only problem is the difficulty level, or some interactions ("pacify" enemies or no pacify enemies ?) that are not very intuitive. Otherwise it's perfect !

@starlight-glimmer-is-best-poney Thanks for checking will see if I can fix it.
Maybe you can add control by mouse? Aim by mouse and move by click?
Only thing I struggled with were controls - for me it was a bit difficult to master them during first few minutes of playing.
Overall this is an amazing job! Great game!
All I can think to add is new enemies and different things that are affected by bubbles. Maybe a gravity field where the bubbles go down or something? Some little animations for the player would be good too, the legs moving a bit as you go forward and stuff like that.
The colour inversion with green for danger and red for secure is surprising too.
It was an amazing journey to swim in this strange and oppressing world yet colored and hypnotic, looking for uncongruous items and avoiding frighting monsters. Thank you very much for this beautiful game, I'm happy having play it!
I'am really impressed by your great level design and the explanation through the game world how the game mechanics of the player works.
The only thing I not like is the movement with WASD. It was sometimes confusing for me. Maybe it could be better to control with the mouse? Try it. :D
### What I liked:
* The mood is fantastic, the music and the graphics fit good together
* The music creates a great atmosphere
* The art style is beautiful
* The checkpoints are useful, I like it if I hadn't to start at the very beginning when I make a mistake and die
* The level design is good
* For a compo entry it's really polished and have much content
### What could be improved:
* The controls, I didn't like it and it confused me in the beginning. It felt a little bit slow and clumsy.
* I wished to have a kind of indicator where to move for the icons, like an arrow or marker or something like this
Overall a very good compo entry and game. Well done!
They ruined the gameplay for me.
But the rest is really amazing for a compo entry! Great stuff!
Anyway awesome compo entry. Great work!
Edit: It's out!
Everything fits together so coherently, it's just, I don't know, good you know.
Art (not even gonna call it graphics anymore), music, sounds, gameplay. Everything just, gells together so well.
The total atmosphere is so good I kept playing, despite the hard parts. Thankfully, you've employed checkpoints, as I'm sure I would've ragequit after a couple of deaths if you didn't.
The only, and I mean, only gripe I have are the icons. I just don't think those fit the rest of the game, other then collecting them.
All in all, truly excellent game! Stellar job!
Favorite part is the movement. It's just fun and it fits the character perfect. Like you could build up a whole world around that little spider dude as he floats and drifts from place to point. Good job.
Really awesome! The aesthetic is really nice here, and I appreciate the consistent visual language you used throughout. The pacing was relatively slow but I think that's actually not inappropriate given the nature of the game. I do think that the energy-sucking worm enemy section was a bit more trivial (non-interactive?) compared to the other two caves, so that would be my main complaint.
Also, congrats and thank you on giving 100 ratings :D
- Graphics : Quite pure, lot of dark/light opposition that represents well the deep sea, and good effects too.
- Controls : I liked the controls, it forces the player to anticipate the speed and the direction before the execution to have smooth movement across the level, I don't know if I could have enjoyed a longer game with that speed but for three levels it was good.
- Level design : Good level design, lead the player to the areas by making trails of energy, at each level showing them the danger and the gameplay in safe places, then putting a harder part that is the real challenge and once it's done having a shortcut to the central place. That's probably the part I prefer the most in this game. It may stick a little bit to the rules, but it definitely works well.
- Audio : The audio was fitting, but I expected something more. I get that aquatic calm vibe but I think it just slows down the game even more. Like after playing a few minutes I can't remember any part of the audio. I would have rather chosen a music that would be a bit more melodic (without having a full orchestra, just setting the atmosphere is enough) and a rhythm that would motivate the player to progress through the map. I just saw an aquatic creature losing its three babies in the ocean, I'm not gonna swim quietly through the water, I'm gonna fight for them if I need to!
The critique may sounds quite harsh but it is really because I see a lot of potential in what you do. For example I don't know your audio skills and I wouldn't be able to do that, especially in 48 hours so I hope that it will push you further in the creation process!!
Don't get me wrong, negative feedback teaches me more. But for that I need feedback from past the first 30 seconds of the game. The only conclusion I can get from this is to update the game to guide players a bit better in the beginning, for the few people that need that I added a short video and some hints. Please play games a bit more thoroughly. While I have enough feedback, others might need feedback that's a bit beyond the first 30 seconds of the game.
An option for gamepad would be appreciated, so you could move smoothly between directions.
The soundtrack and effects complete the atmosphere of the game nicely and blend with the style of the game to create some great mood too! :D
The controls were really easy to get, and manoeuvering in the labyrinth proved a bit challenging too, as giving the bubbles to some of the jellyfish (that top part was the first I went to, without reading much of the instructions, and proved quite a challenge :P).
Really did enjoy playing! Great work there, sir! ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJUjtYyZRuA